Sunshine
by StitchAndRepair
Summary: Mickey and Ian.


_You are my sunshine, my only sunshine_

Mickey remembers the first time he ever felt _really _special.  
He was 2 and he remembers he couldn't sit on his mom's lap anymore because her belly was in the way and his mom smiled a lot and told him that his little sister was in there and he was going to be a big brother soon and it was a really important job and she told him that he'd be absolutely great at it.

And he was. He really was the best big brother ever. His mom told him all the time and so did Mandy, when she finally learned how to talk in more than broken syllables and a language Mickey didn't understand. He knew he was Mandy's favourite, and sometimes he thought he was his mom's too.

_You make me happy when skies are grey,_

Whenever Mickey came in bruised, with skinned knees and knuckles, his mom always cleaned him up. She'd wipe off the dried blood and flakes of dead skin and he'd try not to hiss with the pain. His mom never smiled as much, but she always gave him a big grin as she put a plaster over his cuts, and would sing to him in a voice so soft and so quiet that only Mickey could hear.

_you'll never know dear, how much I love you_

The day Mickey's mom died when he was 13, he came home after getting into a fight with a bully from his class that had been picking on him all year. She was asleep on the couch and he was trying not to cry because his knees hurt from being pushed to the ground and his ribs hurt from all the kicks and all he wanted was to hear his mom's voice and have her patch his knees up and make everything better.  
Except she wasn't asleep. And she didn't wake up and he never got to hear her voice ever again, never got to hear her sing, and his knees scarred over on their own and the blood eventually dried and flaked off.

_So please don't take my sunshine away_

The next day he walked right up to his bully and punched him with everything he had in him and didn't quit punching him until blood poured freely from his knuckles and the pain was too much. It was all too much.  
He went home and Mandy sighed and patched up his knuckles and didn't complain when he drank the vodka that she was using to clean them, and Mickey never told about her about the scabs forming on his knees.

Mandy never sung to him, but she did clean up his knuckles and iced his bruises whenever he came in injured. She never did it for anybody else and sometimes Mickey found himself fighting just so Mandy would clean his hands and tell him off and give him that look just like his mom used to, and for a while Mickey felt special again.

She stopped looking after him by the time he was 15, sick of spending her evenings patching him up. Too busy with boys and make up and a life of her own.  
Mickey never bothered patching himself up, knowing his knuckles would shed blood again the following day and his t-shirt would end up, again, splattered in blood that was most likely not his own. He kept the vodka though and drunk just enough to numb the pain.

Mickey was 17 when he started seeing Ian. It starts how everything starts with Mickey - anger and violence and too much feeling. In a blaze of redhair and swinging fists, Mickey found himself more turned on than he'd ever been, with Ian pinned beneath him, breathing heavy and a pain in his eyes that mirrored Mickey's own.  
It was casual at first, always casual. Even when he knew Ian was feeling more, Mickey kept it casual.

It all changed one day though when Ian was having to look after his little brother in the shop and Mickey was annoyed because he hadn't been laid in a couple of days and working at the shop was his only chance. He should've been pissed off at the little cock-blocker that was sat on the counter, banging together two snickers bars like they were musical instruements, but he couldn't. He couldn't be mad. Because, as he was unloading tins at the back of the store, all he could hear was Ian. Singing. Softly and quietly and in a voice that only Liam should've been able to hear.

_You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,_

Mickey got more drunk than he planned to at Iggy's welcome home party that night. He'd been a cunt to everyone and didn't feel even slightly guilty. He'd pushed Gallagher away and called Mandy a whore and he'd got into a big fight with the Costello's a few blocks over. He sat up and stumbled into the bathroom, head and stomach swimming with the movement.  
He rinsed his mouth out and lifted the hem of his vest to dry his lips. That's when he'd noticed it - his top was different. It was no longer the grubby, blood splattered vest that he was wearing yesterday; it was white, too white against Mickey's hungover eyes, and cleaner than anything Mickey had ever worn. His eyebrows furrowed, he noticed how clean his knuckles were. No traces of blood and Mickey could smell tigerbalm, the shit Ian uses on his cuts after karate. He'd run a finger over his knuckles, wincing at the stinging sensation, and looked up at his reflection, eyes red rimmed and skin pasty and white. Fuck.

_You make me happy, when skies are grey_,

It happened again and again and Ian never mentioned it and Mickey never asked. He tried to stop fighting so Ian wouldn't have to keep cleaning him up, but a part of him liked it. He liked being cared for and he felt special again and it wasn't a feeling that he wanted to let go of. He tried to pretend that it's just what friends do for each other, but Mickey woke up one night and looked through half open eyelids and he had seen it. He'd seen the affection on Ian's face, the worry he tried to hide and it made Mickey feel happy and sad all at the same time and Mickey thinks that that's the moment he fell in love with Ian Gallagher.

He knew Ian cared and Mickey hated it. Because he cared about Ian too and whenever he cared about somebody, they left. So he pushed and he pushed at Ian, tried forcing him to leave. But Ian never did. He stuck around through two stints of juvie, he stuck around when Mickey never wanted to commit, he stuck around despite Mickey trying his hardest to make him let go. And, damnit, if that didn't make Mickey love the fucker even more.

_You'll never know dear, how much I love you,_

And he'd tried. He really did try. Mickey had tried to admit to Gallagher how he felt. He tried to show it in his actions, because Mickey was shit with words and it would've all come out wrong anyway. Fuck, he even kissed him. He thought Ian got it, thought he understood. But Mickey had screwed up and he got sloppy and he let Gallagher blind his vision.  
For a moment he almost believed that he and Gallagher could be something, that they could be together properly. But then Terry came in and ruined everything.

Mickey knows he screwed up by marrying Svetlana and not telling Ian how he felt. But he had tried. The words got stuck in his throat, strangling him, and so he'd tried again. He'd kissed Ian in the back room at his wedding, massaged their tongues together and prayed that that said the words that Mickey could never say himself. He thought it worked. He thought Ian understood.

Yet here they were, back in his room, back where it all started, and Ian was talking about the army and leaving and Mickey couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Ian didn't get it. Ian didn't understand. He'd done it all for him, all of it. He was trying. He was better. He could do this. He could be what Ian needed.

But he saw the defeat in Ian's eyes, the loss of hope. He'd given up on Mickey.  
He tried. He really did. He could feel the words dancing on his tongue, the tears pricking at his eyes as Gallagher walked away.

"Don't"

_So please don't take my sunshine away._


End file.
